Bone of Contention
by Gumnut
Summary: The Three Musketeers aren't the only ones.


Bone of Contention  
By Gumnut   
8 May 2004  
  
It was wet, glistening, and it had him mesmerised.  
  
It was white, but it wasn't bone white. It was more of a pink. Smears of red, pools of red, a certain amount of gushing red, warm on his cold hand. It jutted out like a spear from a turkey.  
  
And it didn't hurt at all.  
  
Yet.  
  
At the edge of his hearing he could hear the battle continuing. The screams of dying men, weapons fire, angry flame that shook the twilight orange. But here it was quiet. He was alone, safe, staring at his broken arm as blood hypnotically pumped onto the dry dirt around him.  
  
He was on a ledge, one he had met with sudden painful abruptness upon being flung from the cliff by a well aimed grenade. His opponent had fallen with him, but had not been as lucky, the Jaffa a crumpled pile of metal, leather and flesh at the base of the hundred foot fall. The cliff stood on top of mountain, the edge of a plateau, and the bottom of the valley was far, far below, the faint line of a river winding its way between this mountain and the next where another cliff was backlit by the setting sun.  
  
Birds flew past him, their cries lonely protest to his trespass.  
  
His blood pumped around his broken bones.  
  
He had hardly moved from where he had fallen. Something other than his arm was broken and movement was painful. If he didn't flinch, didn't breathe, he was comfortable. So he just lay there staring at his arm.  
  
The departing sun gold plated him and the rock he was lying on, and a cool breeze of the approaching night tousled his hair. He should be calling for help. He should be attempting some form of first aid. SG-1 was up there, probably looking for him, but he couldn't gather the energy to fight.  
  
Someone called his name.  
  
Carter?  
  
Again.  
  
Daniel?  
  
Hold your breath, Johnny.  
  
Teal'c.  
  
Three stooges with an attitude.  
  
He tried to reply, his breath spitting blood and dust across the rock. He couldn't even hear himself.  
  
Help, I've fallen and I can't get up.  
  
Even irony hurt.  
  
He didn't delude himself. The team had no climbing equipment. This planet was hot property, the Goa'uld claiming it for their own just a couple of days ago. The SGC had been assisting the small populace, getting out those they could as fast as possible. There was no time to save one man. This was one time he just may have to be left behind.  
  
Yells from above confirmed his suspicions. Arrogant voices, snarls, weapons fire. A body flew past his sight too quickly to identify in the fading light. His heart lurched, throbbing with fear for his team, and the frustration of not being able to do anything about it. He fought to move with no success, pain slamming him back down, a wave of black washing over him, and whisking him away.

-------------------------  
  
He eventually awoke to the sound of thunder. It was dark, but light bounced around him and suddenly someone touched him.  
  
He cried out, trying to defend himself as his head spun in circles, sickeningly. Pain arced across his nerves at movement and suddenly he was airborne. Falling?  
  
Warmth encompassed him, a body held him up. He knew not whether to fight or fling himself from the mountain. His name.  
  
His name, his name, his name.  
  
O'Neill.  
  
Teal'c.  
  
Movement and the pain took him away again.

------------------------------  
  
He had ordered them home, but they had refused.  
  
All three of them.  
  
The Colonel was missing, and be damned if they were going to leave him behind.  
  
Hammond hated to make the decision. God, Jack was like a son to him in many ways, and a brother in others, the thought of losing him tore a hole in his gut. But to lose the entirety of SG-1....  
  
Hell, he didn't want to lose anybody, but the decision had been made, for all the good it did him.  
  
Flatly refused. Carter was willing to throw out her career. Teal'c...he knew he had Teal'c's loyalty, but he wasn't blind to the fact that the Colonel was the only one he really obeyed. Daniel...Daniel always did what he thought was right anyway, regardless of what the General ordered, Jack was the only one who could yell him into the ground.  
  
Jack....Jack had fallen off some god damned cliff in the first place and started this nightmare.  
  
He was angry. And he fought to keep the anger. Because without the anger, there was only despair.  
  
The SGC teams all came back, all except number one, and he was left to wait.  
  
Damn them.

-------------------------  
  
Stealing the cargo ship had been one thing, escaping in it another altogether.  
  
Daniel played pillow to the mass of broken bones and blood stained uniform that used to be his friend Jack O'Neill. The man was breathing, but barely. Blood flecked his cheek, proof of internal injury. Various splints were bound to his body, his own P-90 supporting his shattered arm, remnants of Sam's desperate attempts to stabilise him after Teal'c had heartbrokenly been forced to lift him from the ledge in a hurry before some Jaffa with an itchy trigger finger shot them down.  
  
The sound of Jack crying out in agony had been painful to hear, but any sound would be better than the painful silence now.  
  
Teal'c spun the ship in the air like a top, dodging oncoming fire. The Goa'uld knew they were there and this simple cargo ship had none of the sporty cloaking devices the Tok'ra used. It was a dogfight through death gliders.  
  
They had thought briefly to fight up through the atmosphere and escape to a nearby planet, but Plan A had abruptly been scrapped upon breaching the ionosphere. A ring of Goa'uld mother ships encircled the planet. Daniel had been privileged to hear Teal'c swear, something that happened rarely.  
  
They had dived back down, desperate to lose the inevitable pursuers, but knowing they didn't have a hope. Teal'c whipped them around the other side of the planet, but soon the sun backlit the hawklike profiles of a dozen death gliders hot on their tail.  
  
Their only hope was the stargate.  
  
A heavily defended stargate, no doubt.  
  
The little pyramidal ship tore through atmosphere weaving and ducking, spinning a little as a glancing blow caught a rear fin, sparks flying, and the groan of tortured metal screeched through the ship's frame.  
  
Daniel's teeth gritted on edge as he held Jack to him, keeping him as motionless as possible, and succeeding little. The shudder and scream of the ship managed to awaken O'Neill and the man began to struggle.  
  
"Jack!"  
  
Jack flung his injured arm out, obviously unaware of where he was. There was the crack of bone as the broken limb impacted with the floor and he cried out in pain.  
  
Daniel struggled to keep him still, the older man not necessarily stronger than him, but rather more experienced. He called his name repeatedly, and eventually some recognition came into the man's haunted eyes. "Danny?"  
  
Danny. It always either irritated him or comforted him when Jack called him that, but at the moment, it was what he wanted to hear more than anything else.  
  
"Jack, please lie still."  
  
The dark eyes darted around, coherency returning slowly. Jack seemed to be assessing the situation. "I'm hurt?"  
  
"Yes, you fell."  
  
An explosion interrupted their conversation, sparks flying from a panel in front of Sam as she played co-pilot.  
  
"Sam?"  
  
She coughed, jumping backwards out of the chair. Teal'c flicked a glance in her direction before again spinning the ship on its axis almost throwing her from her feet. Jack shuddered in pain at the movement.  
  
"I'm fine, I'm fine." She yelled at no-one in particular, patting herself where thin tendrils of smoke snaked up from her uniform. Blood ran down one cheek as she clambered back into the chair.  
  
"Brace yourselves!"  
  
Teal'c gave them little warning, but it had to be enough, as the ship flipped in midair, an explosion blossoming to the right. Jack cried out again as his body slid across the floor, Daniel falling with him unable to prevent it. They both plowed into a bulkhead, the thud of bone hitting metal silencing Jack once again.  
  
Oh, god.  
  
Daniel's head spun, but he clung to Jack, desperate to find his pulse. Damnit, Jack, don't you die on me!  
  
A thready beat pulsed beneath his fingers.

-----------------------------  
  
Teal'c fought with no weapons but his own cunning. To be where he was not expected was his only defence, and he used it as best he could.  
  
Fire raked across the bow of the ship, the orange flare burning into his retinas, its ghostly after image dark against the readout in front of him. They had only one chance, the stargate, and they had to breach its security with an unarmed vessel.  
  
It sounded impossible, but Teal'c and Carter had a plan. A plan more reminiscent of those concocted by their madcap leader, but at least they knew he would be proud.  
  
If they survived.  
  
They had circled the stargate briefly, dodging fire both from above and below. A weapons emplacement had been erected directly in front of the DHD, several Jaffa and a cannon their obvious opposition. Ironically its position would be their only hope.  
  
Teal'c shoved the ship into a dive, dodging erratically, compensating as orange fire flared up around them again. He zig-zagged briefly before ploughing the vessel into the ground.

-----------------------  
  
Carter's hair was on fire.  
  
But she didn't have time to do anything about it. The smoldering smell curled in her nostrils almost causing her to gag. Teal'c forced the cargo ship into a plummet, dodging fire, and the planet came up to meet them. It clipped the trees of the clearing surrounding the stargate and Sam got a brief glimpse of Jaffa running for their lives, before the ship hit the ground sliding across the dirt and crashing into the cannon and any Jaffa too stupid to run.  
  
Their world came to an abrupt and bone shattering halt.  
  
The pilot chairs managed to hold both her and Teal'c firmly as the ship spun sideways into the cannon, missing the DHD by a fraction of an inch, but Daniel and the Colonel had no such restraining system and she heard Daniel's panicked yell behind her as they came to a stop.  
  
They had no time to think about it though. They were an immediate target from the air, not to mention the ground.  
  
She activated the doors, grabbing her P-90 and firing at anything that moved. Teal'c a second behind her covered her back as she dialled for her life.  
  
She ducked as orange shot past her. She could feel the hairs on her neck curling in the heat whether from the shot or the exploding panel she no longer knew.  
  
The sound of an established wormhole was the most beautiful sound in the world.  
  
Orange lit up the sky and the dirt beside her exploded filling her eyes with grit. She fired her P-90 blindly into the haze, pain filled screams her only response.  
  
And then Daniel was beside her, firing his own weapon, yelling into the smoke, defiance in every mangled syllable. He grabbed her arm, urging her and hobbling as fast as he could towards the stargate. Teal'c ran past, his precious burden of broken Colonel in his arms.  
  
She grabbed Daniel and they ran up the steps guns spraying wildly, and behind them the world lit up with fire. A pressure wave caught her and all there was, was wormhole.

-----------------------  
  
The gate activation alarms sung in his bones, but the sound of Sergeant Davis confirming SG-1's code was music to his ears.  
  
He took the stairs two at a time, skipping the last three, his feet landing hard on the concrete and jarring his teeth. He made it to the gateroom just as they came barrelling through the wormhole, screaming for the iris to be closed.  
  
Thunder shook the room, and the gate trembled in its clamps, but the sucking spit of the closing wormhole suddenly doused the room in silence.  
  
For a moment the three members of SG-1 stood as if in shock, but the brief silence was shattered by Janet and her medical team tearing into the room, and before his eyes both Carter and Daniel collapsed to their knees. The smell of charred hair permeated the room.  
  
But the worst sight was that of Jack O'Neill. Limp and broken, Teal'c gently laid him on a gurney and Janet and her crew swarmed around him spouting numbers and medical jargon. He was whisked quickly from the room followed closely by two more gurneys each with another member of SG-1 protestingly ensnared.  
  
Hammond turned to the last remaining member, the golden countenance of the Jaffa warrior towering over him.  
  
"General Hammond." Teal'c's head bowed briefly in respect, his dark eyes latching onto his own. In those eyes, Hammond could see everything-the doubt, the despair, the resignation, the understanding of how close they had come to dying, of how they had disappointed him.  
  
They stood there facing each other as the gateroom around them bustled with activity, moving around the two silent figures.  
  
He was angry-damn angry-but he was also relieved. Elated that they had managed to find a way home, to bring them all home.   
  
But their outright refusal to obey his order was not something that he could easily forget. But how could he punish them for bringing Jack home, for quite possibly saving his life? How was that right? How was that fair?  
  
He was damned no matter what path he chose.  
  
The words when they finally came out were hard and bitter on his tongue. "Report to the infirmary. I expect a full explanation as to what transpired as soon as you're cleared. Am I understood?"  
  
Teal'c inclined his head once again. "Fully, General Hammond." He moved gracefully toward the exit, but paused several steps from the open blast door, his body turning back to face him. The Jaffa moved close once again and Hammond could feel his gaze upon him.   
  
"I feel obligated to apologize for our actions, for disobeying your command. But in our defense, General Hammond, how could we do less for him than he would do for any other? O'Neill has taught us well. SG-1 comes home together or not at all." And with that, Teal'c turned and walked away, his shoulders held straight, his head high.  
  
Hammond sighed. At this rate, SG1 was going to be the death of him.  
  
-------------------------------  
FIN.


End file.
